solidarity Tag

PORTUGAL, Tereza Braga • The Lourinhã Parish joyfully welcomed the youths of  Mission Country for the third and final year; they are students of ISEG Lisboa (Superior Institute of Economy and Development). The also young, Fr. Rodrigo, from Óbidos Parish, accompanied the group of sixty missionaries. The missionaries visited several places, schools and kindergartens; they also reached many people “door to door.” On the next to last night of their stay, they had dinner at the home of the families who had registered to welcome them, and the last day endedRead More
CHILE/INTERNATIONAL, Maria Fischer with material from www.schoenstatt.cl and National Secretary of the Schoenstatt Movement in Chile • Schoenstatt International supports us! On 17 February, an article with this title appeared on the national Chilean Schoenstatt website, referring to a call to action in covenant solidarity published on schoenstatt.org on 26 January and 4 February. Read it at schoenstatt.cl: Schoenstatt International has not remained indifferent to the suffering of so many Chileans affected by the forest wildfires that have affected our country for so many days. The www.schoenstatt.org website team (communicationRead More
VATICAN/CHILE, Maria Fischer • The worst forest fires registered in Chile’s history are affecting southern Chile. More than 4 million people were deployed to attend to the emergency. Among them were military personnel, firefighters, volunteers and brigades, as well as thirty-seven aircraft, water trucks and heavy machinery to combat the fires. Six deaths have been reported from the worst forest fires in Chile’s history. They have consumed more than 190,000 hectares of forests and farmland in the central and southern part of the country, according to the latest report fromRead More
PARAGUAY, Ani Souberlich and Maria Fischer • What remains from the Year of Mercy? Pope Francis answered this question in part in his Letter “Misericordia et Misera.”  Several moments that made it easier to find God’s forgiveness, remain – Amoris Laetitia remains, which is only understood by reading it in terms of mercy, and the creativity in responding to the sorrows and needs of the human being in the works of mercy remains. What remains from the Year of Mercy? A lot. Works of mercy, which remain forever. Scores ofRead More
CUBA, Fr. Alberto,  Maisí’s pastor • Catastrophes have a very brief “shelf life” in the media. Not only in the media, but also in donations of solidarity, prayers, and memory.  There are simply so many, that even those that have a personal attachment touching the soul’s deepest parts, fade away…Hurricane Matthew?  The parish of Maisí in the Diocese of Guantánamo, the parish where one of the Schoenstatt Fathers from Cuba worked until July 2016? It was in October, and because Cuba only suffered material damage, the world’s media did notRead More
100 HOUSES, Maria Fischer and Ani Souberlich • We are advancing…on the road towards Christmas We, a searching people, a people of waiting, a people of hope… We are advancing…on the road toward Christmas Guided by a star, a star of peace and of solidarity… We are advancing …on the road toward Christmas A single desire guides our steps: to find a child, to find the smile of a child, to find the humanity of a child… We are advancing …on the road toward Christmas Hands extending toward others, theRead More
COSTA RICA, by Rudolf Sauter and Maria Fischer • This Thursday, a 7.0 earthquake, with its epicenter right off El Salvador’s Pacific coast, shook the Central American territory hours after hurricane Otto entered Nicaragua from the Caribbean. Within a few hours, these small Central American countries – Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica – many of them with a high degree of poverty, found themselves with quake damage in the west and a hurricane in the east. Panamá, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica… are countries that sound “familiar”Read More
PARAGUAY, Ani Souberlich • Every year on 18 October, there is an unprecedented celebration in Tupãrenda; it is the largest pilgrimage to a Schoenstatt Shrine in the world. Year after year, more than 40,000 people go on pilgrimage to the Tupãrendá Shrine to greet the Schoenstatt’s Mother Thrice Admirable. They bring their Pilgrim Mothers adorned with flowers; these traveling shrines visit them in their homes year after year. Year after year, hundreds of Schoenstatters place themselves at the pilgrims’ service. Year after year, bishops from the area along with twoRead More
PARAGUAY, by Maria Fischer and Ani Souberlich • “Do we have donations for one more house?” Ani Souberlich asked me several weeks ago. “I already asked for the material, it is for one of our families that I promised a roof, and with last week’s rain, they had some misfortune, and they are now practically living under a tree. I would like to help them now…and I want to build this house because it is cold. I will tell you more later!” Two or three days before, the first donationRead More
BONDS OF SOLIDARITY, Maria Fischer • For over five years, Schoenstatt.org has hosted a service that imitates Fr. Kentenich’s initiative in the early years of Schoenstatt, the beginnings of a  Schoenstatt that goes out, specifically to the World War I trenches, making it possible for prayers, thanksgiving and commitments of the Schoenstatt youth to reach the their “little chapel” as they called what we today know as our Original Shrine. By clicking on the “Letters for Mary” link, you can send letters to the Blessed Mother from anywhere in theRead More